This Cold Morning

The coffee warms me this cold

morning, at the lake, up early

before the boaters take over, the roar

of motors driving in the fishermen

contemplating a red and white bobber

tossed into the still water, a ripple

created, the lake’s only motion

breaking the morning calm, this cold

morning I share with them, sitting

here, dock-side, coffee-warmed, contemplating

the rising mist, veiled transparency

obscuring land’s end and the lake beyond;

and the eerie cry of a loon, echoing, calling out,

notes my intrusion and calls me back

from my own obscurity to here,

to now, to this cold morning, up early

before nature gives ways to humanity –

man’s dominion – silent, shutting us out

but through glimpses seen, like this,

up early, this cold morning shared.